I look at it this way. You pick an entry point. It may or may not be the optimum entry, but if you are correct in your judgment it will still be a profitable trade. Trying to gain a few extra ticks or points by averaging down is not my cup of tea, but there are many ways to make money in the market, and if it works, who am I to say anything negative about it.
From what I gather, it sounds to me like everyone is hardheaded about others' trading system except their own. No doubt, there's a lot of great traders here. But, if you wanna dole out sage advices, at least do it without flattering yourself first.
FYI: I stopped using that adage in signature after I saw something very similar being used on a commercial site. "Trade what you see, not what you believe." I like mine better. It's Larry Pesavento's Trading Tutor site if you're wondering. http://www.tradingtutor.com/index.php Osorico [no affiliation to/with/for the above posted link]
Loss hurts, hence we need to stop it ASAP and we feel that cure can happen faster if the market reverses and go our way Vs. what if we reversed and the market reverses too(which usually does(because we get out of loss just too late)) then it will hurt 10 times as much. Thus, it is a false feeling that by the market hopefully going our way we'll stop the hurting faster. Now, on the other hand, the winning part gives us a quick n fast high, which we don't want it to disappear, therefore a small high is better than none! Cy
Well, obviously I'm not looking at the superficials of the problem but into much deeper levels. I understand the reasoning behind it what I don't understand is why it is so hard to overcome this "deficiency". How many times must you hit your head against a brick wall to understand the real consequences of such actions ? Naturally, this is different for every trader but for the most part, in my experience, the number is alarmingly high. My conclusion is that they need to be right when what they need to be doing is making money regardless of how many times they are right or wrong. Anek
I asked my brother this morning as i called from work....the market went up and down very clearly...he came back with "but yada yada market overseas and the fed next week and others were saying it was going to, on and on....I stopped him and said "if one million traders across the world were thinking a million thoughts each, did the market still go up nicely and down nicely?" He said yes, and "see you"....don't be brother......very seldom can you help other traders and not end up disappointed...very seldom...
when I was doing it kamikaze style, I had numerous days with +5K, twice I got over 10K. Most days I would bang 2K+. What killed my was the stress behind it. Getting a surprise kick for -11K and staying up all night watching AH ES while smoking a pack of cigs. was too much and in a long term: not worth it. I realized that there must be a better way to make $$$$ and not have a stroke or a heart attack.